


can't stand the heat

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: They are trapped and cold, which obviously means that it's cuddle time. Jason isn't amused.





	can't stand the heat

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thanks to verena for revising this work in record time. you're the queen of my heart, darling!!

“So”, Dick started, “what a mess, uh?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I mean, if only one of us were concerned about this mission…”

“I don’t care. Do I look like a care?”

Dick, though, soldiered on. He was right and couldn’t be stopped. “Maybe, perhaps, we wouldn’t be doing _this.”_

Jason turned to him, glaring in a way that could kill small rodents (and also trigger the law in at least twelve countries). He was shivering, his breath making clouds of condensation in front of him; everything yelling _inofensive_ or _please help,_ but Dick knew better. Jason’s eyes couldn’t fool him, and _damn,_ was the man upset.

“You’re looking nice.” Dick tried, smiling a little around the coldness. “I, uh. I mean the jacket and all.”

_“Shut up.”_

And, well. That was that.

  

The mission started a little like this:

The goal was apparently casual and easy to achieve: in and out, just checking if the information Tim had gotten was sound. He had a new informant working with the Titans and wanted to check the veracity of all the stuff he was saying, up there in that T-shaped tower. Since Dick was his olde(st)r brother, it made sense asking him something this simple. _I would’ve gone myself,_ he said, looking apologetic, _but I have a few messes to clean up._

Dick understood a lot about dealing with other people’s messes, and also leading a team like the Titans, so he said yes.

[Because of course he did].

He was going to go alone. He really were. It was just that, when he got home after work, Jason was sitting on his couch, eating Chinese-takeout leftovers and watching a re-run of Law and Order. Like it was their new normal — which really made everything worse, since it could just as well be. Dick never knew what Jason was thinking, nor understood his reasoning. This, well, _thing_ between them was just as confusing and fragile as Jason’s himself, and Dick was scared of touching it with a ten feet pole.

He wanted them to be dating.

“Hey. How did you got in?” it was the first acceptable thing that crossed his mind, right after _you look so good in this jacket that I could tip the shop myself._ It was also, unfortunately, a dumb question, and Jason answered with all the words that it deserved: which means, none.

“You ran out of orange juice.”

“Uh? I saw some on the fridge before going to work this morning.”

“I drank it.” he answered, bluntly. “Now we need more.”

“You’re like a fucking child.”

“Whatever, dude.”

Dick went to the kitchen to find out what else Jason had mutilated while left alone in the apartment. The inventory ended up to be: a mug (yellow, broken), an empty box of some sweet tasting cereal that Dick hated but Jason loved, missing juice and missing chocolate cake.

Dick was a little upset about the last one, since Alfred had made it for him especifically, but wouldn’t say it, obviously — it would sound crazy selfish, which wasn’t a good look on anyone.

“Happy now?” Jason asked, leaning against the wall, close to the door. Strategic position, like he couldn’t help himself. It made Dick think about before-the-pit-Jason, instead of Red-Hood-Jason, when stuff was easier and Jason nicer. He didn’t know if, given the opportunity, he wouldn’t go back to _before_ , to try making everything different.

The truth was, Dick was just glad that he wouldn’t ever have to find out.

“You have a past.” he said, with the soft certainty of someone who is undeniably right.

“Ah, c’mon.”

“Four plates in a single day.”

“It was an anomaly. Isn’t this what you like to say? Just an anomaly.”

“If it happened once, maybe twice, or even three times, then yeah, okay, I believe you. But you just don’t have any coordination. Sometimes you’re just like a baby giraffe.”

“I am _not_ a baby giraffe.”

Dick lifted a single eyebrow, in the very judgmental way that he learned with his mother. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Well, if you’re sure…”

“God’s sake, fuck the hell off.”

“Swearing, are we.” Dick was very mild. He liked to pull shit like that on Jason, because he always got worked up. Not giving him attention was the biggest offense and crime, which sentence was glaring and pouting and staring meanly forever.

“Dude, sometimes I wish that I had _killed you when I had the fucking chance.”_

Dick gave him a condescending shoulder-pat, brushing past him to the living room (and the just-starting new episode of CSI: Miami). Jason threw away the takeout box with an aggressivity that Dick didn’t know if it deserved. And not even on the recyclable bin. Nope. On the normal one. Because he knew it annoyed Dick senselessly.

He chose to be the better person and not rose to the bait.

Then Jason said, out of the blue. “What are you doing tonight? I have to meet with a few guys on a club and could use the backup.”  

“Sorry, can’t.” he shrugged, “I’ve got to check something for Tim.”

“The replacement?”

Dick sighed, very exhausted and dramatic. It was his go-to reaction to Jason being an asshole. Like a Pavlovian response. “You shouldn’t call him that.”   

“It’s what he is.”

“Jay. He isn’t even Robin anymore.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s true. Now it’s the brat.”

“You shouldn’t call him that.”

“Jesus, you’re like a broken record.” he rolled his eyes like a child. Jason always wanted everyone to know how they annoy him to death.

_“Anyway._ When is this club stuff?”

“I don’t know. Midnight, probably.”

“I think I can check this thing and then go with you. It’s still about the new cocaine supplier, right? You should have someone there to watch your back. In the name of precaution.”

“What is this stuff that replacement”, and Dick sighed, “wants you to do?”

“New informant who claims to have tons of vital knowledge.”

“Suspicious.”

“Right? Anyway, Tim wanted me to check a small one to see if everything is how it should to be. It’s a warehouse almost outside of Gotham.”

“And what it should be?”

“He claims that the cellar is a meth lab.” Jason rose an eyebrow. Dick agreed wholehearted. “It’s just in, check, out. I’m heading there at nine.”

“I’m bored here. Your TV sucks and there’s no food.”

“Because you ate everything.”

“You don’t know that. Whatever. The fact is: there’s no need to beg for my help. I can go with you to this boring favour.”

“I don’t need your help. Didn’t you just heard me say **—”**

“Let’s just get back in time of my stuff, Boy Wonder. My goodness knows a lot of bounds.”

And, just like that, Dick wasn’t going alone anymore.

After all, what could he say?

  

Three hours after that Dick found himself saying, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Of course, usually he wouldn’t eat his pride so easily or so readily, especially with Jason as a witness, but the warehouse looked even shadier than the others in the neighborhood. It was so terrible, didn’t read meth lab as much as killing farm. “We should leave, and tell Tim to check this with the Titans tomorrow.”

“What? You’re kidding me. Since when are you such a coward?” Jason squawked, sounding _incredibly_ indignant for someone wearing a leather jacket during late fall.

“Look at that shit, Jay. With age comes common sense.”

“It’s just an stupid warehouse.”

“More probably a place for hiding corpses while waiting for burying them in the desert.”

“You’re mental. Can you hear yourself? You’re sounding crazy.”

“I have a bad feeling about this. When I’m like this, I’m usually right.”

“Dude, you have a bad feeling about _everything._ Even a broken clock can be right twice a day.”

“We shouldn’t go there.”

“Whatever, pal.” Jason said over his shoulder, already walking in the direction of the possibly-haunted-house. “I’m going there check this shit for replacement. Maybe he’ll start liking me and I can pull crazy pranks on mini Superman without ending up deep fried.”

“Not very probable but a man can dream.” Dick nodded, solemnly.

“You coming?”

“Fine, whatever. But I’ll be fucking _pissed_ when we end up dead.”

“Drama queen.”

“I’m cold”, Jason muttered, “and I blame you.”

“How is _any_ of this my fault?”

“Well, who showed up with this stupid mission to begin with?”

“Dude! Tim?”

“Replacement is clearly fucking stupid. You should’ve known better.”

“You _volunteered_ to come here. I didn’t invite you.”

“That was not what happened.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“You keep whining—”

“Shut up, Jason. Just please shut the fuck up.”

“I hate your face.”

“Thanks. Now stop moving, I’m trying to spoon you.”

  

It was pathetic. The guys didn’t need thirty minutes to lock them down in the cellar (not a meth lab. Damn, Timmy) and leave the building.

   

“Does the jacket really looks good?” Jason asked randomly after a couple hours. Dick saw himself in the position of worrying for the sanity of someone who was already pretty insane.

“Looks fantastic, Jay. Really bring out your best features. Your cheekbones and shit.”

“Yeah?”

“Like, your eyes. And your arms; fighting crime really suits you.”

“Thanks, Dickie. I’ll hold these compliments close to my heart while I slow die of hypothermia.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Nope. That’s you.”

“No—”

“Literally _your name.”_

(sighs)

(giggles)

 

After the third hour, when it was obvious that they wouldn’t be able to leave before dawn (the criminals took their phones. They couldn’t even call for help — I mean, it was all very theoretical. They wouldn’t expose themself to public humiliation like this anyway) Dick decided that something had to be done before Jason froze to death. He was the first priority because Dick, who liked to act like the adult that he was, dressed himself sensibly to stand the weather. He was cold but not dying. Jason, though, couldn’t say the same.

“Is it a fashion statement?”

“What?”

“Your jacket.”

“Dude! You’re still trapped on this? I keep telling you and you never believe me, but being a broken record is one of your most distinctive features.”

“I think we should cuddle.”

Jason blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Cuddle.”

“What the fuck do you mean by cuddle.”

“I didn’t know that the word had more than one meaning.”

“We’re in Arctic hell and you want to _cuddle?”_

“It’s _exactly_ because we are freezing that we should spoon. Human heat, Jay. It’s basic.”

“This is pathetic. I don’t think that you should let your throat very close to my hands — I may actually kill you this time.”

“Your lips are blue.” Dick said, matter-of-fact.

“No they’re not.”

“You’re shaking.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You’re curled like a ball.”

“Fuck the hell off.”

“God have mercy, Jay, but let me _aggressively_ cuddle you or I _will_ take your invitation on that fight-to-death you’re always yelling about.”

“This is shitty. This is such a shitty situation.” he muttered, curling around Dick, doing everything to look like he was walking to his execution. Like he was checking a mental list of avoiding-vulnerability-when-needed and was determined to succeed.

“Shut up, Jay. You suck.”

“Well, you too.” pause. “And double meaning intended.”

“I’m gonna really, really kill you. _I mean it._ Just you wait.”

    

“When we finally get out of here I’m buying you a fucking scarf.”

   

“You fucked me. I fucked you. We had each other’s dick on out mouths. We had sex in public that one time. And still what get you weirded out is… cuddling.”

“It’s not the spooning that bothers me”, Jason said, hugging one of Dick’s arms like it was a teddy bear. “It’s the doing it for survival part.”

“Why? You rather freeze?”

“I don’t like to live my life with rom-com cliches check points, thank you very much.”

Dick sighed. “You should’ve just put on the coat like I told you to. And gloves and a hat. Then you would be very warm and we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Fuck you.” Jason told him, because that was how he dealt with being wrong. It’s crazy when you think that someone who is as often way off the mark should have more practice at this, and maybe react more gracefully. “When will we leave?”

“No idea. I can’t see shit in here.”

“Damn. Fucking hate you, dude. You’re the worst and I hate you.”

“Whatever.”

“Can’t believe that Boy Wonder doesn’t have a plan. You’re useless.”

“Oh my _god_ why are you still awake??”

“The offended never dies. Or sleeps. Both.”

“This is literally the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

   

“Jay.” Dick poked him in the ribs. “Jay, wake up.”

“Jesus _Christ,_ what do you want.”

“Do you think that we’re dating?”

Jason blinked at him, maybe wondering if he was dropped on his head when he was a child. “Yeah, dude. What the fuck?”

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“You’re so fucking weird sometimes, I can’t even—”

 

The whole night was weird and sometimes dream-like. They were trapped and cold and everything sucked. When the morning finally came, it found them still curled around each other, maybe looking kind of frozen, but a little less exhausted and traumatized as the situation could have possibly been.

Well.

All in all, it was cute as shit.


End file.
